Harvard Business Publishing

The following was written by Innosight Senior Director Kevin Bolen:

Innovators, are you feeling a bit lonely at the moment? Don't take it personally. During turbulent economic times, companies naturally tend to turn inward. Talking about the core business that everyone understands and can predict is like eating comfort food on a dreary day -- a temporary escape to a better time and place.

Unfortunately, these sentiments alienate those focused on the "new and different" and prolonged isolation can lead to rash, unproductive behavior. Don't fall into this trap. A more thoughtful response during such times can actually accelerate and expand the returns on your innovation initiatives.

To help you make the right decisions, we offer a brief list of actions that innovators should and should not be doing in today's skittish climate. We focus on the two main areas most likely to evoke the wrong behavior: the call of the core and the scarcity of funds.

In terms of working with colleagues and leaders in the core business, Innovators should accept the realities of the marketplace and lend a hand. Innosight's research has shown that innovation can only succeed when the core business is stable so innovators should look for ways their team and personal expertise can help right the ship.

One way to support the core is to temporarily suspend "nice but not necessary" market trials and reallocate resources to research efforts around core clients. Also, innovators can use the toolkit they have developed pursuing new growth businesses to help the core:

• Understand how the jobs-to-be-done for consumers are changing in light of the economy and align your value proposition accordingly


• Conduct a disruptive threat assessment to analyze and counteract the actions of emerging competitors


• De-feature existing offerings to meet just the basic needs of consumers at a lower price point

Innovators should not react to this internal focus of core leaders by trying to cram disruptive offerings into the core business. Trying to force-fit technology or service offerings through traditional business models will not only deprive the concept of the time and freedom it needs to evolve successfully, it will confuse your existing channel and consumers at a time when they too are seeking familiarity and stability.

In short, offer your help and expertise to the core, but don't offer to assimilate.

Turning our attention to budgets, it is expected that as capital tightens and revenues become less predictable, many across the organization will seek to defend what they have. Instead, Innovators should embrace scarcity. Pre-empt the inevitable discussion and voluntarily scale back your line items. You will like find that a sharper focus actually increases your ability to innovate. Ways you can consider "giving back" include:

• Release any part-time team members back to their "day jobs" in the core business - two or three dedicated people will accomplish far more than 30 people spending 10 percent of their time


• Prune your portfolio -- prioritize concepts based on anticipated time to profit and upside potential, and temporarily shelve smaller and slower ideas


• De-feature your concepts -- look for performance areas where you may be overshooting customer needs and eliminate them. Be ruthless here as consumers will not pay for performance they don't need.


• Revisit your research approach -- make do with small sample sizes, social media input, and low cost interviews to get directional information versus pursuing perfect data


• Reduce the cost of your field trials -- start with what you would do if you had no funds then move up gradually from there. Use a 3-D illustration instead of a prototype. Have consumers request samples via a website instead of in-store trials.

Innovators should not respond to the threat of budget cuts by inflating the business case for their ideas. You goose the size of the target market by 15%, reduce production costs by 20%, bring the release date ahead 9 weeks and "Presto!" you are suddenly helping the bottom line! It is your job as the good innovator to resist this siren song as leaders will be looking for any plausible reason to avoid making difficult cuts. The core business must respond diligently to their economic challenges and your new concepts must be allowed to develop at the pace of their market. Attempts to "go big" quickly to save a company rarely, if ever, succeed.

Finally, innovators should respect their role in turning around the economy. The core business you are trying to save today started as an innovation. The core business of tomorrow is a "new and different" idea today. It's symbiotic. Help the core stabilize during this period and your company will emerge from the downturn faster, stronger and better positioned to innovate than your competitors.